1981 Academy Awards® Winners and History Reds (1981) Actor: HENRY FONDA in "On Golden Pond", Warren Beatty in "Reds", Burt Lancaster in "Atlantic City", Dudley Moore in "Arthur", Paul Newman in "Absence of Malice" Actress: KATHARINE HEPBURN in "On Golden Pond", Diane Keaton in "Reds", Marsha Mason in "Only When I Laugh", Susan Sarandon in "Atlantic City", Meryl Streep in "The French Lieutenant's Woman" Supporting Actor: JOHN GIELGUD in "Arthur", James Coco in "Only When I Laugh", Ian Holm in "Chariots of Fire", Jack Nicholson in "Reds", Howard E. Rollins, Jr.

in "Ragtime" Supporting Actress: MAUREEN STAPLETON in "Reds", Melinda Dillon in "Absence of Malice", Jane Fonda in "On Golden Pond", Joan Hackett in "Only When I Laugh", Elizabeth McGovern in "Ragtime" Director: WARREN BEATTY for "Reds", Hugh Hudson for "Chariots of Fire", Louis Malle for "Atlantic City", Mark Rydell for "On Golden Pond", Steven Spielberg for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" The Best Picture winner this year was a surprise and major upset win for British producer David Puttnam's low-budget Chariots of Fire, directed by Hugh Hudson, with seven nominations and four wins. It also took top honors for Best Screenplay (Colin Welland), Best Original Score (Vangelis' rich electronic, throbbing score, especially during the iconic opening credits sequence) and Best Costume Design. The win signaled the start of another mini-British renaissance of film awards for this year and the next - with Gandhi (1982) soon breaking all British film Oscar records. (It had been 13 years since another British-made film had won Best Picture, Oliver!

(1968)) Chariots of Fire was also the second sports film to win Best Picture (the first was Rocky (1976) ). It also marked the first of four biopics to win the top award during the 80s, joining Gandhi (1982), Amadeus (1984), and The Last Emperor (1987). Of the top five competitors for Best Picture, two were historical epics, two were about senior-citizens, and one was a throwback to the action/adventure films of the past: Chariots of Fire was the inspirational story of the 1924 Olympics running event in Paris and the motivations of two of Britain's runners, Cambridge University students - English Jew Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Scottish Christian missionary Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson).

The film, which contained an anti-Semitism subplot, soon became the most-successful foreign film in US box-office history Warren Beatty's $35 million, three-hour long American epic masterpiece and front-runner in the competition, Reds (with twelve nominations and three wins) including Best Director (Warren Beatty), Best Supporting Actress (Maureen Stapleton), and Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro, the winner of the same award for Apocalypse Now (1979) .) Reds was the film biography of American communist and romantic figure John Reed, a left-wing radical journalist and author of Ten Days That Shook the World, who journeyed from Oregon to Greenwich Village and then to Russia to cover first-hand the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution on the streets of Petrograd [Beatty received simultaneous nominations as producer, director, co-writer (with English dramatist Trevor Griffiths), and star actor for the film. Only one other director, Orson Welles, had accomplished such a feat (for Citizen Kane (1941) ).

Beatty was repeating his acquisition of quadruple nominations - his earlier film Heaven Can Wait (1978) had earned him the same distinction.] director Mark Rydell's favored, all-star family drama On Golden Pond (with ten nominations and three wins), a screen adaptation of Ernest Thompson's play about the members of the Thayer family who conflict and reconcile with each other during one summer at a lakeside New England cabin The other Best Picture nominees were: director Louis Malle's long-shot Atlantic City (with five nominations and no wins), the dual stories of an aging, small-time hood and a struggling oyster-bar waitress in the casino town director Steven Spielberg's (and George Lucas' written and produced) block-busting, entertaining genre film Raiders of the Lost Ark (with nine nominations and five wins, mostly technical awards), an old-style action/adventure film about the heroic exploits of archaeologist Indiana Jones searching for the Ark of the Covenant against the Nazis All five of the directors of Best Picture nominees were likewise nominated in the Best Director category - the third instance in Oscar history.

[It also happened in 1957 and 1964 and would not occur again for another 24 years, in 2005.] Warren Beatty won the award as Best Director for Reds. [He was one of the few actors/stars that was also an Oscar-winning director (but without winning an acting Oscar), along with Robert Redford for Ordinary People (1980) the previous year, Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves (1990) and Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).] Reds had nominations of its actors in all four categories, but only one of the four performers won - Best Supporting Actress.

All four of the acting awards winners were elderly, aging actors - the oldest collection of acting winners ever assembled, averaging 70.75 years old: 76 year old Henry Fonda (Best Actor for On Golden Pond) 74 year old Katharine Hepburn (Best Actress for On Golden Pond) 77 year old Sir John Gielgud (Best Supporting Actor for Arthur) 56 year old Maureen Stapleton (Best Supporting Actress for Reds) Other elderly nominees joined the acting winners: 68 year old Burt Lancaster (Best Actor nominee for Atlantic City) 57 year old Paul Newman (Best Actor nominee for Absence of Malice) 50 year old Ian Holm (Best Supporting Actor nominee for Chariots of Fire) The sentimental favorites and actual winners for Best Actor and Best Actress were legendary actors, both co-starring in the same film, On Golden Pond. This was only the fifth film in Oscar history to have Oscars wins for Best Actor and Actress in the same film (it also occurred in 1934, 1975, 1976, and 1978).

This was the only time that Henry Fonda was teamed with his real-life daughter Jane, and the only time he starred with veteran actress Katharine Hepburn: Henry Fonda as the gutsy, nearly-80 year-old Norman Thayer, a former college professor who is facing senility, but enjoys sharing life on the lake with the young son of his daughter's boyfriend in On Golden Pond. Henry Fonda's Best Actor award for the film was his first Oscar. It was undoubtedly a 'career' Oscar win - a tribute to his long, distinguished career of film-making. [At 76 years of age, Fonda was the oldest nominee and winner in the Best Actor category in Academy history.] Fonda had been nominated for Best Actor only once before - forty one years earlier for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) , but had lost the award. The gap of time between acting nominations was a record in itself. (Fonda's daughter and co-star Jane accepted her father's Oscar, because he was too ill to attend. He died about four months later.

His win made it the first time that a father-daughter team were Oscar-winners: Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond (1981)) and Jane Fonda (for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978)). The second father-daughter Oscar winners occurred in 1999 - for Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie.) Katharine Hepburn as his wise and quietly-strong wife Ethel who urges her crusty husband to reconcile with his daughter (Jane Fonda) in On Golden Pond. The couple portrayed bickering but devoted protagonists. [At 74 years of age, Hepburn became the oldest Best Actress winner up to that time - she was surpassed 8 years later by 80 year old Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Hepburn also set a record with her fourth (and final) Oscar - she became the first performer to win that many Best Actress awards with a record of twelve nominations.

The four remaining Best Actor nominees included the following: Warren Beatty (with his third Best Actor nomination) for his role in Reds as radical American communist and journalist John Reed, who faced increasing resistance to the spread of Communism in isolationist 1920s US, witnessed the Russian Revolution and then wrote the book, Ten Days That Shook the World Burt Lancaster (with his fourth and last career nomination) as small-time hood Lou in Atlantic City Paul Newman (with his fifth career nomination) as Michael Gallagher, the innocent victim of an unscrupulous Miami newspaper columnist's report in Sydney Pollack's examination of the ethics of journalism, Absence of Malice (with three nominations and no wins) Dudley Moore (with his sole Oscar nomination in his career) as the drunk, spoiled, amiable and millionaire-rich playboy and title character Arthur Bach in Arthur (with four nominations and two wins) The four remaining Best Actress nominees included: Diane Keaton (with her second of four Best Actress career nominations) as Louise Bryant, Reed's lover (and then wife) and fellow radical in Reds Marsha Mason (with the last of her four unsuccessful nominations) as the brilliant, self-destructive, divorced alcoholic Broadway actress Georgia in Neil Simon's adaptation of

 his own play (The Gingerbread Lady) in the film Only When I Laugh (with three nominations and no wins) Meryl Streep (with her third nomination and first Best Actress nomination, and her first of three consecutive nominations in the early 80s) as the enigmatic heroine Sarah Woodruff/Anna of the title in two parallel stories in the complex film adaptation of John Fowles' best-selling novel, director Karel Reisz' The French Lieutenant's Woman (with five nominations and no wins) Susan Sarandon (with her first nomination) as aspiring casino croupier Sally who becomes involved in a drug deal and who sexily rubs lemon juice on her breasts to remove the smell of fish in Atlantic City [Coincidentally, Streep lost the Best Actress bid to Hepburn when she won her final Oscar with her 12th nomination.

Eighteen years later in 1999, Streep would tie Hepburn with her 12th nomination, and in 2002, Streep would surpass Hepburn with her 13th nomination, and then in 2006 garner her 14th nomination.] Classical actor Sir John Gielgud won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role (not in Chariots of Fire as Master of Trinity) as drunken Arthur's kindly, no-nonsense, sarcastic, deadpan butler/valet Hobson in the comedy Arthur. [His only other Oscar nomination was in his role as King Louis VII in Becket (1964).] The four other Best Supporting Actor nominees included: James Coco (with his first and only career nomination) as an unemployed gay actor in Only When I Laugh Ian Holm (with his first and only career nomination) as Liddell's trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire Jack Nicholson (with his sixth career nomination and second Best Supporting Actor nomination) as Eugene O'Neill in Reds Howard E. Rollins, Jr. (with his first and only career nomination) as the black ragtime piano player Coalhouse Walker, Jr.

in Ragtime Maureen Stapleton won the Best Supporting Actress award for her portrayal of earthy, disillusioned, and despairing revolutionary-anarchist Emma Goldman in Reds. This was her fourth and final career nomination and only successful one - she had been nominated three times previously for Best Supporting Actress in 1958 (for Lonelyhearts (1958)), 1970 (for Airport (1970)), and in 1978 (for Interiors (1978)). All of her nominations were for films with one word titles! The other Best Supporting Actress nominees included: Melinda Dillon (with her second and last Best Supporting Actress nomination) as tragically-suicidal Teresa in Absence of Malice Jane Fonda (with her sixth of seven career nominations, and her sole supporting nomination) as Henry Fonda's screen daughter Chelsea Thayer in On Golden Pond [the only time that Jane and Henry acted together] Joan Hackett (with her first and only career nomination) as a socialite in Only When I Laugh Elizabeth McGovern (with her first and only career nomination) as millionaire Harry K.

Thaw's sexy showgirl wife (and Stanford White's mistress) Evelyn Nesbit in Ragtime Four-time Best Actress Oscar-defeated Barbara Stanwyck (in 1937, 1941, 1944 and 1948) accepted an Honorary statuette from the Academy, "for superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting." Oscar Snubs and Omissions: Director John Boorman's visionary version of the King Arthur tales - Excalibur, received only one unsuccessful nomination for Best Cinematography. The four nominations for The Rose, featuring Bette Midler's remarkable performance, went unhonored. The endlessly fascinating dinner conversation film, Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre was completely omitted from honors. There were no special recognitions or nominations for the imaginative Visual Effects in the mythological fantasy Clash of the Titans, the last film from legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen. Ragtime was awarded eight nominations (with no wins) without a Best Picture nomination. And Gallipoli went completely unnominated, including omissions for Best Picture, Best Director (Peter Weir), Best Actor (Mel Gibson), and Best Supporting Actor (Bill Hunter).

Director Blake Edwards' semi-autobiographical comedy S.O.B., a satire on the film industry which featured his squeaky-clean wife Julie Andrews exposing her breasts, was devoid of nominations, as was the crime drama True Confessions, starring Robert Duvall and Robert DeNiro as two brothers brought together as a result of a brutal murder in late 1940s Los Angeles.

Many acting nominations were denied to a number of proven actors and actresses in 1981: the previous year's Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek was neglected for her performance as WWII Texas switchboard operator and divorced mother Nita Longley in Raggedy Man (with no nominations) Faye Dunaway was bypassed for her role as abusive mother and actress Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest (with no nominations) Candice Bergen was denied a nomination for Rich and Famous (with no nominations) Sally Field was ignored for her performance in Absence of Malice (with three unsuccessful nominations) both Carol Burnett (in a serious role) and Bess Armstrong were un-nominated for their lead and supporting roles in director/actor/writer Alan Alda's marriage drama The Four Seasons (with no nominations) Other un-nominated stars/directors included: director/star/co-writer Albert Brooks for his role as love-torn Robert Cole in the realistic romantic comedy Modern Romance Harrison Ford - for his defining performance as courageous, indomitable hero Indiana Jones, and Karen Allen - for her liberated role as sidekick Marion Ravenwood in Steven Spielberg's action/adventure tribute Raiders of the Lost Ark John Heard for his anti-hero role as crippled, angry Vietnam veteran Alexander

 Cutter in Czech director Ivan Passer's ignored Cutter's Way (with no nominations) Steve Martin (in his first dramatic role) as Arthur Parker - a Chicago Depression-era traveling sheet-music/song salesman, and Christopher Walken in a short role as slick pimp Tom who performed a seductive, almost-lewd striptease/tap-dance ("Let's Misbehave") on top of a bar in a sleazy joint to entice shy schoolteacher Eileen (Bernadette Peters), in director Herbert Ross' eccentric, downbeat musical Pennies From Heaven (with four unsuccessful nominations) Donald Sutherland as a deadly Nazi agent in Eye of the Needle Treat Williams as corrupt NY narcotics cop Daniel Ciello in director Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City William Hurt (as lowlife lawyer Ned Racine) and Kathleen Turner in her film debut (as conniving and sexy femme fatale Matty Walker) in Lawrence Kasdan's modern-day noir Body Heat (with no nominations) John Belushi (in his last film appearance) as a burly newspaperman who falls in love with mountain woman Blair Brown in Michael Apted's romantic comedy Continental Divide (with no nominations - and another un-nominated Kasdan screenplay) Chariots of Fire - Awards

 - IMDb Vangelis was not present at the awards ceremony.

Co-presenter William Hurt accepted the award on ... More Vangelis was not present at the awards ceremony. Co-presenter William Hurt accepted the award on his behalf. Nominated Super Reviewer ½ The UK re-release of Chariots of Fire to coincide with the London Olympics gives us a golden opportunity to re-examine the film which revitalised the British film industry. Long after writer Colin Welland's fateful cry of "The British are coming!" at the Oscars, the film still stands as one of the defining moments in 1980s cinema, for better or worse. Neither the disappointment of Hugh Hudson's subsequent career, nor the seemingly endless stream of parodies and imitations, has tarnished what remains a truly great piece of British filmmaking. For those of us not caught up in the patriotic fervour of the Olympics, it would be tempting to dismiss Chariots of Fire as an outdated, backward piece of filmmaking. Lindsay Anderson, who has a supporting role in the film, was very scathing about the seeming resurgence of British filmmaking following its Oscar success.

The pioneer of Free Cinema and the British New Wave claimed that, in their quest for international success, British films had abandoned the unique style and adventurous spirit that they had in the past. He remarked that "the British came, but their first-class air fares were paid for in dollars." In spite of Anderson's comments, which carry more than a grain of truth, it is very difficult to come out of Chariots of Fire without having had one's spirits even slightly raised. While the tone of Hudson's film is light and respectful, not to say uplifting, it scores over many subsequent epics on the grounds that it actually has something to say. It even knocks Gandhi into a cocked hat by giving us characters to admire without holding them at arms' length. It wants us to understand the history through the pleasures and pains of the people who made it, not by remonstrating about the reputations they accrued. David Puttnam once described Chariots of Fire as being essentially about "Christianity and Judaism, getting on". He wanted to make a film about the relationship between the Abrahamic faiths, at a time when anti-Semitism was as rife in British culture as Christianity was strong.

The film depicts these anti-Semitic tendencies very delicately, with a series of barbed off-hand comments about Harold Abrahams "not going to be singing in the church choir" or being "semi-deprived" because of his background. But Hudson is also careful not to labour the point, playing on the absurdity of his predicament in the restaurant scene, where Sybil accidentally orders two plates of pigs' trotters. The film shows a great amount of reverence for the respective faiths of the central characters. While it doesn't ask the kind of deep, difficult spiritual questions that something like Shadowlands does, nor does it shy away from demonstrating the problems that come from such devotion, whether it be Eric's quarrels with Jennie about missionary work or his refusal to run on the Sabbath. In an age where religious belief is dismissed as always being irrational, idiotic or rooted in hatred, it is refreshing to see a depiction of religious belief (be it Christian, Jewish or otherwise) which recognises the good intentions of the people upholding those beliefs and the positive impact which they can have on one's character and works.

Alongside its examination of the practical workings of faith, Chariots of Fire also tackles the issue of sportsmanship and the reasons why people may represent their country, whether in the track and field or on the battlefield. Both Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams have multiple motivations which lead them to run for Britain. Neither of them are doing it explicitly for their country, as shown by Liddell's resistance to the Prince of Wales about running on the Sabbath or Abrahams' personal obsession with beating Liddell. While Abrahams' relationship with God is rather ambiguous, Liddell runs because that is God's purpose for him at this point in time. The affections of women also play a role, with Liddell looking to reconcile with his sister Jennie and Abrahams vying for the affections of Sybil. For a film which appears so reverential and respectful towards British institutions, Chariots of Fire does tap into the erosion of old values by new ideas that emerged after the First World War. In one of its best scenes, Abrahams is confronted by the Masters of Gonville and Caius about him employing a professional athletics coach in the shape of Sam Mussabini.

They claim that it is against the amateur spirit of athletics in general and the Olympics in particular, accusing Abrahams of compromising himself and bringing their colleges into disrepute. Abrahams, by contrast, sees the Masters' conception of sportsmanship as an outdated relic. The ruthlessness he exhibits in his preparation foreshadows the determination of the athletes we recognise today, indicating the kind of selfless spirit which has become diluted and eroded as more of Abrahams' archetypes have passed through all forms of sport. Certainly the 1924 Olympics as depicted in the film bear very little resemblance to the modern-day Games; you won't find athletes in 2012 using trowels to dig out their starting marks, or passing each other notes of encouragement. Chariots of Fire may be British with a capital 'b', but it doesn't fall into the obvious traps that would hamper later export-driven efforts from the likes of Merchant Ivory.

The aesthetic of 1920s Britain is very well-evoked, and it takes a while to adjust to all the social niceties of post-war England; to paraphrase Mark Kermode's comment about The Shawshank Redemption, there's a whole lot of chariots before you get to the fire. But once you are in the zone the characters cease to feel like stereotypes of British culture, and for all its painterly cinematography the film has enough pace to sustain itself beyond its beautiful landscapes. Perhaps the most famous aspect of Chariots of Fire is the soundtrack by Greek composer Vangelis, who would later provide the soundtrack for Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and 1492. Puttnam, who worked with him on Midnight Express, intended to use electronic music as a counterpoint to the traditional songs of the period, setting Abrahams' performance in HMS Pinafore against the synth-driven montage of Liddell running over the Scottish hills. For the famous opening scene on the beach, Hudson originally wanted to use 'L'Enfant', which Vangelis had recorded for one of Hudson's documentaries. Vangelis bet the director that he could come up with something better, and the rest is history.

The brilliant soundtrack, coupled with the now-synonymous use of slow-motion, hints at the real power and purpose behind Chariots of Fire. Above and beyond its themes of patriotism, spirituality, duty and devotion, it is a film which seeks to inspire and incite fervour, whether it be pride in one's country, admiration for these men or awe at the kinds of sacrifices they made. Hudson depicts the characters so believably and naturalistically that you would need a heart of stone not to be won over by them. Even those of us who aren't ardent patriots can enjoy it without feeling guilty; the film is celebrating the individuals who represented Britain, rather than the act of representation itself. The performances in Chariots of Fire are of a very high standard. Ben Cross brings real depth to Harold Abrahams, which makes it all the more disappointing that his subsequent career has brought him so relatively little recognition. The late and much-lamented Ian Charleson is superb as Eric Liddell, inhabiting the character to the point of writing much of his own dialogue (for instance, his speech to the athletics crowd gathered in the rain).

There is also good support from Lindsay Anderson and Sir John Gielgud as the masters of Gonville and Caius. While Gielgud is happy playing to type, Anderson retains a wry awkwardness, perhaps imagining the fate of future dons in his brilliant satire If.... from twelve years before. Chariots of Fire is a great film which is more than deserving of a re-release this summer. Its gentle pacing and stiff-upper-lip may prove impenetrable to some, and the legacy it has left behind for British filmmaking has not been one of unmitigated benefit. But to judge it on its own terms, outside of these Olympics or any other, it is a triumph of British cinema, with emotional depth and intelligence to spare. It demands to be seen by anyone with an interest in British film, and now is the perfect time to do so. Daniel Mumby Super Reviewer ½ This is an elegantly low-key fact-based period drama centered around two runners competing for Great Britain during the 1924 Olympics in Paris, One of them, Eric Liddell, is a devout Scottish Christian who feels that he is running for the glory of God.

The other, Harold Abrahams, is an English Jew who runs as a way of trying to overcome prejudice. It is a sports movie, and it is inspiring, but it's not really about the sports. Instead, this is a movie where the sports are the backdrop and it's really a film about dedication, determination, and faith. Prejudice is also a very strong underlying subtext. This movie takes these issues seriously, but it also manages to be entertaining and not just a "heavy" film. It's got a few trappings of the sports movie genre such as montages and slo-mo, but they never truly stick out or get in the way. This is about the characters and themes more than anything. The pacing is far from breakneck, but I never felt that the film was too sluggish or boring. The deliberate pacing allows for the characters and themes to be well developed. You really feel like you get to know these people and care about them and their respective beliefs. Probably the most notable thing about this movie is the music. I kind of feel like people are more familiar with this film's music, especially the stirring theme song than the actual movie itself.

That's a bit of a shame, but at least that means this film made some sort of cultural impact. Vangelis did a good job here, and it is surprising how well his contemporary synth-based music works with the period setting. Give this movie a shot. It is an old fashioned and very British film, but it has some really good performances, memorable music, and actually tries to say something meaningful. Chris Weber Is 'Chariots of Fire' best Olympics movie of all time? We open the debate comment With the Academy Awards airing Sunday, I decided to use the first of my semi-regular Olympics columns to revisit the most acclaimed and honored movie ever made about the Olympics. "Chariots of Fire" tells the true story of two runners, one Jewish, the other a Scottish missionary, who followed their convictions and ran to glory at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. The movie won four Oscars in 1981, including best screenplay, best original score and, of course, best picture. I loved "Chariots" when it came out and was happy to see it beat the overhyped "Reds" for best picture (though I was disappointed to see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" lose).

Was "Chariots" really the best movie that year, better than "Reds," "Raiders" and other nominees, "Atlantic City" and "On Golden Pond"? Well, it was obviously better than "On Golden Pond." But how does it stack up 30 years later? To see whether "Chariots" really deserved Academy gold, let's go to video replay Scene 1: On the beach: The movie begins at the 1978 funeral service for Olympic champion Harold Abrahams, then quickly cuts to the famous beach scene where we see a young Abrahams and fellow 1924 British Olympians running across the sands. They wear white shirts and shorts, along with the sort of joyful expressions that indicate they should be tested for non-performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps they are so euphoric because they are hearing the Oscar-winning Vangelis soundtrack, a score so stirring that the synthesizer music still sounds cool three decades later. Are there any runners alive who haven't recreated this scene in their heads at least once? For that matter, is there anyone who hasn't posted a YouTube video of themselves running to this song?

(For all the copies and parodies, none are better than this one by "SCTV" and Hall and Oates --yes, Hall and Oates!) The "Chariots" opening is just a wonderful, inspiring scene that makes me want to go for a run right now. I give it the silver medal for most inspiring sports movie scene, just behind Rocky's gold medal-winning "Gonna Fly Now" sequence. Timmy Lupus catching the fly ball in "Bad News Bears" to music from "Carmen" wins the bronze. Cambridge arrival: We're introduced to Abrahams and his classmate, Aubrey Montague, as they arrive at Cambridge for fall term 1920. They are runners, but Montague tells Abrahams, "Only trouble is, I can't stand getting beat. And you?" Don't know, Abrahams replies -- "I've never lost." This scene also reveals just how privileged many Olympians were in those days. Eleven months after the end of World War I, the two students arrive at Cambridge and immediately enlist porters to carry their luggage, which prominently includes golf clubs and tennis racquets. Two horribly disfigured WWI veterans look on in disgust.

"That's why we fought the bleeding war for," one says. "To give s---- like that a bleeding education." By the way, if Abrahams looks a little old to be just now entering school, it's because he was played by a 34-year-old Ben Cross, perhaps the most outrageous actor-to-character age gap other than Wilford Brimley playing Pop Fisher in "The Natural" when he was in his 40s. The college chase: Abrahams takes on the College Dash, a race around a campus quadrangle in the time it takes for the bell tower to toll 12 times at noon. "What's special about it, my dear lad, is that in 700 years, no one has ever done it." Joining Abrahams just before his run is classmate Lord Andrew Lindsay, who arrives with a cigarette holder in his mouth, a champagne bottle in his hand and a flowing scarf around his neck. (I would love to see Usain Bolt saunter up to the start line of the 100 in London with a scarf and a cigarette holder.) The two race around the quad, with Abrahams just crossing the line before the final toll.

Abrahams' battle against anti-Semitism is one of the movie's major themes. Watching the race from their ivory towers, the bigoted Cambridge master (played by John Gielgud) observes to a colleague, "Perhaps they are God's chosen people after all. I doubt there is a swifter man in the kingdom." The Flying Scotsman: The film cuts to Scotland, where our second hero, Liddell, speaks to a group about the glories of God. Liddell is a Christian missionary and a brilliant athlete who never lets an opportunity pass to talk about God. He is sort of the Tim Tebow of his day, except Liddell refuses to compete on Sunday. We also meet Liddell's zealous sister, Jenny, who thinks her brother loses an ounce of his immortal soul every time he runs. She takes the gold medal as the biggest sourpuss in movie history, edging Myra Fleener from "Hoosiers." Unlike Jenny, Liddell's father encourages Eric to use his athletic skills to a greater purpose. "You can praise God by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection," he says.

"Run in God's name and let the world stand back in wonder." Tebow couldn't say it better. Training montage No. 1: Here is a prime example of how "Chariots" differs from most sports movies. Others show training montages with dynamic, inspiring music, like "Gonna Fly Now" or the Notre Dame fight song. We see Abrahams running in Ralph Lauren-quality tennis sweaters to Gilbert and Sullivan. The coach: Abrahams attends a meet between Scotland and France, where he sees Liddell get knocked off his feet by another runner in the 400. This is like the Mary Decker-Zola Budd incident, except for a key difference -- Liddell rises to his feet and rallies to win the race. After the race, Abrahams meets professional coach Sam Mussabini. This is radical because, back then, athletics were supposed to be for amateurs and gentlemen. What is interesting is that when "Chariots of Fire" came out, professional athletes still were barred from the Olympics. The IOC moves slowly, my friends.

Night at the opera: Dressed in a tux and watching from a private box, Abrahams falls in love with Lindsay's sister, Sybil, a chorus girl singing "Three Little Maids" in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado." You know, for all the fame Vangelis received for his soundtrack, we hear Gilbert and Sullivan's music nearly as often. Abrahams loses to Liddell: Abrahams and Liddell finally meet on the track. Liddell crushes Abrahams, who doesn't know how to handle the loss. He is in agony, partly because he replays the race over and over in his head, and partly because there are some really annoying synthesizer sounds playing in the background. Sybil tries to cheer Abrahams, to no avail. Exasperated, she says that if he's going to behave this way, perhaps it is best he lost. "I don't run to take a beating! I run to win!" he shouts.

"If I can't win, I won't run." She wisely counters: "If you don't run, you can't win." Just then Mussabini walks up and offers his coaching services, saying he can help gain Abrahams 2 yards by correcting the way he overstrides. Training montage No. 2: Another training montage, this one alternates between shots of Abrahams running in more sweaters under Mussabini's watchful eye and Liddell running through the Scottish Highlands. Not only is Liddell wearing leather shoes, a shirt and wool pants, he is also wearing suspenders! He obviously does not have an endorsement deal. The montage continues and now we see Liddell running on the beach wearing (gasp!) shorts and no shirt! Exposed legs and a bare chest! Jenny is right! Her brother is sprinting straight to hell. The next thing you know, he'll be wearing a swoosh. "God also made me fast": After showing up late to a prayer meeting due to a running commitment, Liddell tells his sister he will return to China to continue his missionary work after he runs in the Olympics.

She is furious, but he cuts her off, saying, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure." This is a medal contender for best line in sports movie history. Others include: "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." -- "The Pride of the Yankees" "OK, well, uh candlesticks always make a nice gift." -- "Bull Durham" "Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules." -- "The Big Lebowski" "There's no crying in baseball!" -- "A League of Their Own" "Show me the money!" -- "Jerry Maguire" And of course "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice." -- "Caddyshack" Champagne hurdles: Sybil meets with her brother at his Downton Abbey-like estate to complain about Abrahams' running obsession. Lindsay tells her to deal with it, explaining that while he himself has a chance to be a fast runner, Abrahams could be the fastest.

That, he emphasizes, is quite different because it means immortality (as well as massive shoe contracts). Lindsay then begins his strenuous afternoon training regimen. He has his servants set up hurdles on the grand lawn, carefully setting a full glass of champagne on each one. A maid brings him his running spikes, Lindsay takes off his robe, removes the cigarette from his mouth and runs a nearly flawless dash that spills only one drink. Admit it, you would be way more excited about track and field if they ran the 110 Champagne Hurdles. Ivory-towered bigots: Those pompous, bigoted Cambridge masters call in Abrahams to chastise him for hiring a coach, particularly one of both Italian and Arab descent (say it isn't so!). This just isn't done by a Cambridge man. Why, the next thing you know, Abrahams will expect to be paid for competing in front of thousands of fans who bought expensive tickets to see him! And you know what that would lead to -- agents! Abrahams accuses the masters of hypocrisy, leaves their office and despairs in the courtyard. But good news! Abrahams' pals immediately rush over to tell him he has made the Olympic team!

And Liddell, too! Never on Sunday: Bad news! Boarding the boat for France, Liddell learns the 100 heat will be held on a Sunday. "It's only a heat," his friend says. "Does it make all that difference?" It does. Liddell will not race on the Sabbath, which as we all know, the Lord set aside for watching football. The Yanks are coming: The American Olympic team arrives in France and we meet sprint champs Charlie Paddock and Jackson Scholz. Paddock is played by Dennis Christopher, who portrayed Dave Stoller in "Breaking Away" just a couple of years earlier. Christopher was only 26 at the time and had already been in two of the best sports movies of all time. And then his career just went in the tank. Within a couple of years, he was doing single episodes of "Trapper John," "Matlock" and "Murder She Wrote," along with such straight-to-video trash as "Dead Women in Lingerie." His was a swifter, greater fall than Ben Johnson. Training montage No.

3: Those damn Yanks train under the guidance of professional coaches (hiss!), each wielding megaphones while putting the athletes through their paces. Wearing loose gray sweatsuits that will remain fashionable through "Rocky" and "Heaven Can Wait," the Americans perform bizarre exercises that are best described as guaranteed to pull a hamstring or strain an oblique. The Olympics begin: The Olympics open with the athletes marching into the stadium, the majority of them white and male. The opening ceremonies were much simpler in those days. There was no torch to light (that tradition didn't start until 1936), but there was no over-the-top "entertainment" like Yoko Ono singing "Imagine," either. The Prince of Wales: At a private waltz for the Olympians, Liddell is escorted to a private chamber. There the Prince of Wales -- who will go on to become a fascist sympathizer -- asks him to run in Sunday's heat out of love for his country. Liddell refuses.

"I won't run on the Sabbath and that's final." Welland won an Oscar for ‘Chariots’; Welland won an Oscar for ‘Chariots’ By Sam Roberts / New York Times News Service Published Nov 6, 2015 at 12:02AM Colin Welland, a Liverpudlian screenwriter who won an Oscar for “Chariots of Fire” (1981), the dramatic tale of two Olympian runners who defied both the odds and the British establishment in 1924, died Monday at his home in London. He was 81. The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, said Anthony Jones, his literary agent. The success of “Chariots of Fire” was perhaps as improbable as that of Welland, who had once abandoned his dreams of acting to teach art. A relatively inexpensive historical film, it interweaves the stories of a highly motivated English Jew and a Church of Scotland preacher who compete on the British team. “Can you imagine going in to a Hollywood mogul and saying, ‘I have this idea about two Olympic athletes from 1924’?” Welland asked an interviewer.

But “Chariots of Fire” emerged as an upset winner, with Oscars for best picture — beating “Atlantic City,” “On Golden Pond,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Reds” — and best original screenplay. (It also won for best costumes and best original score, a rousing work by Greek composer Vangelis that became a hit recording.) In his acceptance speech, Welland thanked the Academy for celebrating the British film industry, particularly after another British film that year, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” received five Oscar nominations. “The British are coming!” Welland declared from the stage. His screenplay championed the individual triumphing over the establishment.

Writing in The New York Times, film critic Vincent Canby said of the two main characters, “In the way that Eric Liddell runs to honor God, Harold Abrahams, the son of a Lithuanian immigrant who made a fortune in England, runs to become visible in the Anglo-Saxon society that pretends not to notice his Jewishness.” Canby said the film was an “unashamedly rousing, invigorating but very clear-eyed evocation of values of the old-fashioned sort that are today more easily satirized than celebrated.” Welland gave expression to one such value in the character of Liddell, who saw running as a means of glorifying God and refused to race on a Sunday. “I believe God made me for a purpose,” Liddell says, “but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure.” Colin Edward Williams was born July 4, 1934, in Leigh, Lancashire, in northwest England, to John Williams and the former Nora Downs. He grew up farther south in the Kensington area of Liverpool, a city he considered his home, and later moved to Newton-le-Willows in Lancashire.

Survivors include his wife, the former Patricia Sweeney; four children and six grandchildren. Stifling his childhood ambition to act, he studied at Bretton Hall College of Education and Goldsmiths College in South London (a constituent of the University of London) and, at his father’s urging, taught art. But at 26 he was hired as an actor and assistant stage manager by Manchester Library Theater. He appeared in Harold Pinter’s “The Birthday Party” and later thrived for three years as a constable in a British television police series, “Z-Cars.” He also appeared in a number of films, among them Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 thriller, “Straw Dogs,” starring Dustin Hoffman. With Walter Bernstein, Welland wrote the 1979 John Schlesinger film “Yanks,” which concerns the cultural strains between the reserved residents of semirural Northern England and the brash U.S. soldiers stationed there as they mobilize for D-Day. The film starred Richard Gere and Vanessa Redgrave. In writing the film, Welland drew on his own recollections of his wartime youth and solicited them from others as well, including strangers.

“I was quite literally the kid in the movie who gets a hatful of coins from the soldier who won it in a crap game,” Welland told The Times. “What he says, ‘Spend it for me, kid,’ is exactly what was actually said to me.” 11372919 Chariots of Fire Chariots of Fire By Jim Emerson The come-from-behind winner of the 1981 Oscar for best picture, Chariots of Fire either strikes you as either a cold exercise in mechanical manipulation or as a tale of true determination and inspiration. The heroes are an unlikely pair of young athletes who ran for Great Britain in the 1924 Paris Olympics: devout Protestant Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a divinity student whose running makes him feel closer to God, and Jewish Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a highly competitive Cambridge student who has to surmount the institutional hurdles of class prejudice and anti-Semitism. There's delicious support from Ian Holm (as Abrahams's coach) and John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson as a couple of Cambridge fogies.

Vangelis's soaring synthesized score, which seemed to be everywhere in the early 1980s, also won an Oscar. Chariots of Fire was the debut film of British television commercial director Hugh Hudson (Greystoke) and was produced by David Puttnam. Academy Awards Chariots of Fire won Academy Awards for Best Picture (David Puttnam - Producer), Writing (Best Screenplay written directly for the screen; Colin Welland), Costume Design (Milena Canonero), Music Scoring Awards (Best Original Score; Vangelis). It was also nominated for Supporting Actor (Ian Holm), Directing (Hugh Hudson) and Film Editing (Terry Rawlings). Share Your Memories! Is Chariots of Fire one of your favorite movies? What do you remember about it? Share your stories (or your reviews) with the world ! (We print the best stories right here!) Your Memories Shared! "What works best of all in Chariots of Fire is the music score by Vangelis.

There are many scenes of competitive track and field, the category that both men enter the Olympics under, and the music set to some of the scenes is worth the price of admission alone." --Anonymous Chariots of Fire Movie Review (1981) | Roger Ebert Tweet This is strange. I have no interest in running and am not a partisan in the British class system. Then why should I have been so deeply moved by “Chariots of Fire,” a British film that has running and class as its subjects? I've toyed with that question since I first saw this remarkable film in May 1981 at the Cannes Film Festival, and I believe the answer is rather simple: Like many great films, “Chariots of Fire” takes its nominal subjects as occasions for much larger statements about human nature. Advertisement This is a movie that has a great many running scenes. It is also a movie about British class distinctions in the years after World War I, years in which the establishment was trying to piece itself back together after the carnage in France. It is about two outsiders, a Scot who is the son of missionaries in China, and a Jew whose father is an immigrant from Lithuania.

And it is about how both of them use running as a means of asserting their dignity. But it is about more than them, and a lot of this film's greatness is hard to put into words. “Chariots of Fire” creates deep feelings among many members of its audiences, and it does that not so much with its story or even its characters as with particular moments that are very sharply seen and heard. Seen, in photography that pays grave attention to the precise look of a human face during stress, pain, defeat, victory, and joy. Heard, in one of the most remarkable sound tracks of any film in a long time, with music by the Greek composer Vangelis Papathanassiou. His compositions for “Chariots of Fire” are as evocative, and as suited to the material, as the different but also perfectly matched scores of such films as " The Third Man " and "Zorba the Greek." The music establishes the tone for the movie, which is one of nostalgia for a time when two young and naturally gifted British athletes ran fast enough to bring home medals from the 1924 Paris Olympics.

The nostalgia is an important aspect of the film, which opens with a 1979 memorial service for one of the men, Harold Abrahams, and then flashes back sixty years to his first day at Cambridge University. We are soon introduced to the film's other central character, the Scotsman Eric Liddell. The film's underlying point of view is a poignant one: These men were once young and fast and strong, and they won glory on the sports field, but now they are dead and we see them as figures from long ago. Advertisement The film is unabashedly and patriotically British in its regard for these two characters, but it also contains sharp jabs at the British class system, which made the Jewish Abrahams feel like an outsider who could sometimes feel the lack of sincerity in a handshake, and placed the Protestant Liddell in the position of having to explain to the peeved Prince of Wales why he could not, in conscience, run on the Sabbath. Both men are essentially proving themselves, their worth, their beliefs, on the track. But “Chariots of Fire” takes an unexpected approach to many of its running scenes.

It does not, until near the film's end, stage them as contests to wring cheers from the audience. Instead, it sees them as efforts, as endeavors by individual runners -- it tries to capture the exhilaration of running as a celebration of the spirit. Two of the best moments in the movie: A moment in which Liddell defeats Abrahams, who agonizingly replays the defeat over and over in his memory. And a moment in which Abrahams' old Italian-Arabic track coach, banned from the Olympic stadium, learns who won his man's race. First he bangs his fist through his straw boater, then he sits on his bed and whispers, "My son!" All of the contributions to the film are distinguished. Neither Ben Cross , as Abrahams, nor Ian Charleson, as Liddell, are accomplished runners but they are accomplished actors, and they act the running scenes convincingly. Ian Holm , as Abrahams' coach, quietly dominates every scene he is in. There are perfectly observed cameos by John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson , as masters of Cambridge colleges, and by David Yelland, as a foppish, foolish young Prince of Wales.

These parts and others make up a greater whole. “Chariots of Fire” is one of the best films of recent years, a memory of a time when men still believed you could win a race if only you wanted to badly enough. Advertisement

Question: Who won an Oscar for the music for Chariots of Fire in 1981?
Answer: Vangelis